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Sunday, 21 August 2016

Olympic Alphabet : W is for ...

WHAT TO WEAR

Among all the highly
anticipated pre-Olympic announcements one seems to generate more argument, and
derision, than any other – the uniform and kits that the national teams will
wear. Quite often some teams have marched into the opening ceremony and have
made me think “what ARE they wearing?” and I’m not referring to the traditional
and ethnic costumes (I wish there could be more of these).

Between 1912 and 1948 the
Olympics had medal-winning competitions in music, art, poetry, sculpture,
architecture and town planning. The first four of these are still part of the
Olympic programme though they are part of cultural festivals and not
competitions. Perhaps a new Olympic event could be introduced – fashion and
clothes design, with a select group of top designers acting as judges?

All of this made me think
about what other people wear at the Olympics, whether it’s in the sporting
arena of in the ceremonies. With fashion and clothing design having such a big
lgbt contingent I thought it might be fun to have a look at the huge variety of
clothes that have been produced for the Olympics by lgbt designers.

We’ll begin with the
official team uniforms and kit. Most leading fashion designers have
designed team uniforms.
Not all of them have been without criticism.

When Ralph Lauren unveiled
his London 2012 uniform for Team USA came in for a bit of criticism for being
too preppy. What Lauren tried to do was produce a uniform inspired by the one
worn by Team USA at the previous London Olympics in 1948. But the biggest
criticism he received came in 2008 when it was revealed that the uniforms he
designed for Team USA were made in China.

The gay Canadian twins Dean
and Dan Caten – Dsquared2 – came in for some criticism on the very first day
that they were announced as the designers of Team Canada’s Rio 2016 uniform. In
2015 they had produced a fashion line which offended a lot of First Nation and
Inuit people, for which they apologised. Some Canadian Olympians (none who are
competing in Rio as far as I’m aware) said that they would feel uncomfortable
wearing any Olympic uniform designed by DSquared 2. There was little complaint
about their previous Olympic uniform for Canada at the Vancouver 2010 winter
games.

Which brings me on to
opening and closing ceremonies because DSquared2 designed the outfits worn by
the volunteers and major performers (with the exception of lgbt performers k d
lang and Ashley McIsaacs) at all four ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympic and
Paralympic games. From the outfits worn by Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams, to
the voluminous gold dress of Measha Brueggergosman who sang the Olympic anthem,
the Caten twins displayed their skill at designing clothes suitable for the
intimate catwalk and the massive stadium.

Fashion catwalks may not
seem to have much in common with sporting ceremonies, but there have been
several segments specifically devoted to fashion catwalks. The most recent was
just this month in the opening ceremony of Rio 2016 with supermodel Gisele
Bündchen walking the entire length of the stadium in a glittering dress
designed by the openly gay Brazilian designer Alexandre Herchcovitch. A
similar, shorter, walk was made by Alessandra Ambrósio at the London 2012
closing ceremony Rio handover segment. Herchcovitch himself is no stranger to
the Olympics as he designed Brazil’s team uniform for Athens 2004.

In fact, it seems that if
you need to make an impact in a frock (as we say in Yorkshire) it has to it
glitter! The London 2012 closing ceremony, you may remember, had seven
supermodels in shimmering gold dresses and a suit designed by some of the UK’s
leading openly gay fashion designers, including Christopher Kane, Erdem and
Jonathan Saunders.

Perhaps my personal
favourite has to be the Armani dress worn by Carla Bruni at the Turin 2006
opening ceremony. In another glittering, flowing gown that looked like it was
made out of ice crystals, Carla carried the Italian flag into the stadium. No
photograph can ever capture the visual impact of this fantastic dress.

There were also catwalk
segments in other Olympic ceremonies. Italian designers Dolce and Gabana, Valentino and Versace produced dresses worn
in the handover segment at the Salt Lake City 2002 closing ceremony, and
Spanish designers were featured in the opening ceremony of Barcelona 1992. In
Sydney 2000 supermodel Elle McPherson appeared on a giant camera at the closing
ceremony. She was, however, upstaged by the “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”
bus, fifty drag queens and Kylie Minogue.

The ceremonies, of course,
involve costumes for thousands of performers. While no one lgbt designer has
personally designed all of those needed for entire four ceremonies there are
several who have produced a major part of the visual impact of the Olympic
ceremonies.

One who probably had the
most involvement was award-winning film and stage costume designer Ray Aghayan
who designed most of the costumes for the ceremonies of Los Angeles 1984. The
Caten twins and Vancouver 2010 has already been mentioned. Harrison McEldowney
and carnival designer Peter Minshall produced costumes for Barcelona 1992.
Elements of Minshall’s ideas were used in Salt Lake City 2002 and Atlanta 1996.
Among the Sydney 2000 costumes were the blue costumes designed by Peter
Morrisey for the Oceana group in the “Arrivals” segment.

I could go on. However,
one last name. Some athletes don’t compete in the official kit, they wear
specially designed clothes by someone else. This is especially so in figure
skating. So today’s final lgbt designer is the man who designed the costume
worn by Yuzuru Hanyu in his gold medal-winning routine at Sochi 2014. That
designer was no stranger to the ice and fancy costumes himself. He was none
other than former Olympic figure skater Johnny Weir.

The montage above shows
(from left to right)

Top
row : Bryan Adams and
Nelly Furtado in DSquared2, Vancouver 2010; cast member of the Olympic
Centennial marching band in a uniform by Ray Aghayan, Atlanta 1996; Team USA
uniform by Ralph Lauren, London 2012.

Bottom
row : cast member as a
ray of the sun, designed by Peter Minshall, Barcelona 1992; Carla Bruni in
Armani, Turin 2006; Yuzuru Hanyu on the medal podium in his Johnny Weir
costume, Sochi 2014.

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About Me

I was born during a thunderstorm in the summer of 1960 and was brought up in a village in north Nottinghamshire. I attended the sort of school which practiced “history for girls, geography for boys”, but developed a love of history none-the-less.